On this day in 1914, Sir John French, commander in chief of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), begins his first official dispatch from the Western Front during World War I, summarizing the events of the first several weeks of British operations.

"The transport of the troops from England both by sea and by rail was effected in the best order and without a check," French began. "Each unit arrived at its destination in this country [France] well within the scheduled time." The decision to send British troops to fight in France had been made on August 5, 1914—the day before Britain’s formal declaration of war on Germany. Initially, the BEF deployed only 100,000 men, the largest number that the small, professionally trained army could put in the field. On August 23, some 35,000 soldiers of the BEF saw action for the first time against the Germans at the Mons Canal, in southwest Belgium near the French border. The Battle of Mons—the fourth of the so-called Battles of the Frontiers—stalled the German advance by one day, ending nonetheless in a British retreat.

French subsequently took his men out of the front line, planning to let them rest behind the Seine River west of Paris. Under pressure from his French counterpart, General Joseph Joffre, as well as his own government, to rejoin the fray and offer support to the beleaguered French forces, he capitulated. As he recounts at the end of his first dispatch: "On Saturday, September 5th, I met the French Commander in Chief at his request, and he informed me of his intention to take the offensive forthwith, as he considered conditions very favorable to success." The offensive began the following morning, as British and French forces halted the German advance in the decisive Battle of the Marne.

On 7 September, on the Northwest Front, the German 8th Army opened the Battle of the Masurian Lakes, shattering half of the Russian XX Corps and quickly took Biala. Fighting lasted until the 15th, with the Russians losing over 60,000 dead and 45,000 prisoners, while German losses were put at 10,000.

In the Baltic Sea, German light cruisers sank the Russian steamer Oleaborg near Raumo, in the Gulf of Bothnia.

On the Southwest Front in Galicia, a German Landwehr Corps and the Austro-Hungarian 1st Army advanced in heavy fighting at Tarnawka. There was fresh struggle between the Russians and Austro-Hungarians around Grodek. Russian cavalry reached the Carpathian Mountains.

In Petrograd, Octobrists and Kadets (Centrist parties) in the State Duma, joined with centre groups in the State Council to form a Progressive Bloc, holding 300 of the 422 deputies. At Petrograd, the Tsar approved the formation of the All-Russian Union of Zemstvos for the Relief of the Sick and Wounded, with Prince G.E. Lvov as chairman.

(...) The entrance to the Chateau des Pucelles looks exactly as it does in the Guide. This is where General Humbert, the GOC of the Moroccan Division, established his headquarters on 7 September 1914. The village is perched on the edge of the plateau and overlooks the Aube plain. (...)

Finally we reached Mondemont, the highlight of the day. This village was the pivot of the battle on 9 September 1914: the French needed to hold the village in order to deny the ridge to the Germans. The bombardment of the castle began on the morning of 7 September, and the Germans succeeded in taking it on the morning of the 9th. (...)

On 7 September 1914, the first of two battles around the Masurian Lakes unfolded at Goldap and Lotzen. Francois and Mackensen attacked their respective targets, with 5000 prisoners and sixty guns captured within three days. It was beginning to look like the Eighth Army would be able to eliminate another Russian Army at the Masurian Lakes. Rennenkampf however, had other designs. Determined to escape Samsonov's fate, Rennenkampf ordered the First Army to retreat from enemy territory. "Withdrawing as far as twenty-five miles a day, the Russians literally ran faster than the Germans could chase them."

Like Cocos, Fanning Island received a visit from the German Navy. On 7 September 1914 the cruiser SMS Nurnberg, accompanied by SMS Leipzig, approached Fanning Island, flying the French flag. Landing an armed party the Germans set about wrecking equipment and cutting the two cables. They also took 3000 gold sovereigns from the safe, used to pay the staff, plus £71 in stamps and cash from the Post Office. Shortly after this incident the Nurnberg was sunk, with all hands, in an engagement with the Royal Navy known as the Battle of the Falkland Islands.

At the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, Lord Derby, unofficially known as ‘England’s best recruiting sergeant’, came up with the idea of bringing men who worked and socialised together in a fighting regiment. This would hopefully make the idea of going to war more appealing to the men of Liverpool.

An advert was placed in the local newspapers on 27 August 1914, asking that men wishing to join ‘a battalion of comrades, to serve their country together’ should report to the 5th Battalion The King’s Liverpool Regiment the next day. Lord Derby wrote to the heads of the large companies and businesses in Liverpool, such as the shipping lines and insurance houses, outlining his plans for the Pals battalions and requesting that efforts should be made to send eligible employees to the recruitment offices.

The response was overwhelming and on the first day of recruitment, Lord Derby was able to form two battalions, to whom he gave a rousing welcome speech. These first 1,050 recruits were officially enlisted at St. George’s Hall on 31 August. By 7 September 1914, Lord Derby had over 3,000 recruits, and by mid-October a second advertisement appealing for recruits meant that there were a total of four ‘Liverpool Pals’ battalions, and two reserve battalions. They were officially known as the 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th Service Battalions of the King’s Liverpool Regiment, or sometimes as the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th City Battalions of the King’s Liverpool Regiment. Many men from Birkenhead joined these battalions

The march past the City Chambers of Glasgow on the 7th September, 1914 of Glasgow tramway men to form the 1st Battalion.

The parade took place on the 7th September 1914 and was a response to the Magistrates asking the Glasgow Corporation to form two battalions to help in the war effort. The tramway men were there (as reported in the Glasgow Herald of the 8th September), to get the Corporation's approval for them be the 1st Battalion. There were 1000 men there from all ranks within the corporation from conductors to motormen. They had marched from the Highland Light Infantry Drill Hall in Garnet Hill and were under the charge of Mr James Dalrymple who was the tramways manager. They paraded in front of the Lord Provost, Sir D M Stevenson, some Magistrtes and Col. Stanley Peterson, the Chief Recruiting Officer for Scotland. The Battalion went on to become the 15th Highland Light Infantry.

Cataloguer's comment: The parade shows the huge response to the "Call to Arms" by Glasgow tramway workers, when 1000 men from all ranks marched past the Glasgow City Chambers on 7th September 1914. The film was probably made to show the remarkable patriotic spirit amongst the Glasgow tramway men.

3.30am Battalion "Stood to Arms" Enemy's snipers both accurate and accurate especially opposite Trenches 73-74-75 RFA fired 8 rounds shrapnell at 1040am (Registration) Enemy's working party fired on by RFA shooting successful. Enemy fired 28 small HE on support trenches of trenches 70 and 71 and 7 HE into WELLINGTON Redoubt. One man in front line wounded by shrapnell.

7.30pm Battalion "Stood to Arms"

10pm- One of British mines made to explode opposite Right Coy of Battn on our left (11th R. Fusiliers) considerable rifle & MG fire after explosion. Our Battn MGs supported forward movement of Right Coy of R. Fusiliers on to newly formed crater.

7 September 1915 - Unveiling on Wattle Day by the Governor-General, Sir Ronald Munro Ferguson, in an Adelaide park of the ‘first official monument to the fallen heroes’. It was inscribed Australian Soldiers Dardanelles April 25 1915.

Incidentally, a little known fact is that the first memorial to the landing on the 25th April 1915 is located in the South Parklands in Adelaide. It was unveiled by the then Governor General on 7th September 1915, and it mentions the "Australasian" soldiers at the landing on 25 April 1915 at the "Dardanelles". The words Anzac or Gallipoli are not mentioned although the term Anzac had been used since early 1915. Soon after the evacuation it meant an Aussie or Kiwi who had fought at Gallipoli. These people later wore a gold "A" on their battalion colour patch.

Minnehaha SS was built by Harland & Wolff Ltd, Belfast, Ireland. She was 13,714grt and a defensively-armed British Merchant ship. On the 7th September 1917 when 12 miles SE from the Fastnet, Southern Ireland she was torpedoed without warning and sunk by German submarine U-48. 43 lives lost. Powered by quadruple expansion engines with 8 cylinders of 30, 43, 63 & 89 inches diameter each pair ; stroke 60 inches; 1,227 nominal horsepower; engine by the builders.

The battle of Dobrich, also known as the Dobrich epopee (Bulgarian: Добричка епопея), took place between 5 and 7 September 1916 between the armies of Bulgaria and Romania. Despite being outnumbered, the Bulgarian Third Army was victorious and took Southern Dobruja, pushing the Russian and Romanian forces further north and defeating them once again at the Lake Oltina - Kara Omer - Mangalia line.

ARMISTICE FATALITIES: Australian service personnel who died on 11 November 1918

Private Joseph Louis Delley (service number 5575) was an unmarried 21-year-old farmer born in Bundaberg, Queensland. He enlisted in Brisbane on 16 March 1916, having previously been rejected nine times as he suffered from the tropical skin disease filariasis.

He left Australia on 7 September 1916 with the 15th reinforcements of the 26th Battalion. He disembarked in England on 2 November and embarked for France in mid-December. He continued to suffer from filariasis and was hospitalised several times in 1917 and 1918. On 27 October 1918 he was admitted to hospital with severe pneumonia and he died at 6pm on 11 November. The official cause of death was influenza septicaemia. The Last Post was played at his funeral and his coffin was draped with the Union Jack. Among the mourners present were an aunt and uncle who lived in Bournemouth and another aunt and uncle who lived in Lancashire. His mother was sent his belongings - three coins, a prayer book, a pocket book and some letters.

What a night we had, we all shivered with cold and had to get up and pace up and down to get warm. We shook hands with a woman soldier in the Serbian Army who came up to the camp to see us. Her name is Milian and she has such a nice face, so sturdy too. She had been fighting for three years and was so pleased to have her photo taken.

Ishbel Ross was born on the Isle of Skye on 18th February 1890. Her father, James Ross, is credited with the development of the famous Drambuie drink. Ishobel attended Edinburgh Ladies College and afterwards worked as a teacher at Atholl Crescent School.

Soon after the outbreak of the First World War Ross heard Dr. Elsie Inglis give a talk on the Scottish Women's Hospital Unit. Inglis was looking for volunteers to accompany her to Serbia. Ross agreed to join Inglis and she arrived in Salonika on 22nd August 1916. She remained on the Balkan Front until July 1917.

Ishbel Ross kept a diary of her experiences and after her death in 1965, her daughter, Jess Dixon, arranged for it to enter the public domain. Little Grey Partridge was published by the Aberdeen University Press in 1988.

EYES OF THE ARMY:
The Life and Letters of World War I Aerial Observer Lt. Mortimer M. Lawrence

September 7, 1917 Fort Sill, Oklahoma
Fort Sill, Okla.

Dear Folks:-

We arrived here last night about eleven. By we I mean two Nat’l Guardsmen from Pennsylvania and one from New York and myself. The Fort Sill station is about 3 miles from the Aviation Camp but we managed to get a ride over here and then dug up a fellow who got us some cots & blankets and we slept out on the porch.

Today we were issued mattresses, sheets, pillows & cases and we are going to be very swell.

I haven’t been able to get near a telegraph office or I would have wired you that I arrived here O.K.

This trip was very unexpected. Tuesday morning the Regimental Commander called me over to his office and told me he had been instructed to send one man to the School for Aerial Observers at Fort Sill. He had picked me as the best fitted man and did I want to go? Of course I jumped at the chance and was told to go to the Quartermaster for my transportation.

I knew there wasn’t any chance of getting money from you and we hadn’t been paid so I borrowed $20.00 from Mr. Hanson, as I wired you. Knowing that you would repay him and I could pay you. It is a good thing that I had some extra money as Uncle Sam didn’t furnish any Pullman so I paid for that myself.

I haven’t much room to write about the trip as my paper is almost gone but we are going to be taken to town today and I will get some there.

Please send me my suitcase as I had a bad time moving without it. Also please send me some pajamas, my B.V.D.’s, my leather putties. I don’t know of anything else I need expect those two “Rubdry” bath towels and I guess you’d better put in about six pair of my army sox.

From G. K. Rose, The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry.

7th September 1917 - “On September 7 Brown and myself went up through Ypres to view the scene of the attack. At Wieltje, where Colonel Wetherall and B and C Companies already were, we descended to a deep, wet dug-out and that night listened to a narrative brought by an officer who had participated in the last attempt to take the hill.”

9 April 1917 - Arthur, 28, and Bill West, 26, both of the 14th Battalion Canadian Infantry (Quebec Regiment), Canadian Expeditionary Force, who died during the attack on Vimy Ridge. Sons of Abraham and Emiline West of Norfolk, Ontario, they are buried in adjacent graves in Nine Elms Cemetery, Thelus. A third brother, Louis West, 21, was also killed at Vimy Ridge on 7 September 7 1917. He is buried in Lapugnoy Military Cemetery.

(...) By 1910 he had given up all his mathematical posts and had become a full-time politician. His expertise in military affairs meant that after World War I started in 1914 he chaired many committees with a military remit, such as those set up to reorganise munitions, the navy, and aeronautics. He joined the Cabinet in 1915 as Minister of Public Instruction and Inventions. By early 1917 he was appointed as head of the Ministry of War and accepted, against his better judgement, the advice of his Commander-in-Chief to launch an all-out attack on the German lines. The attack rapidly failed and Painlevé had to replace his Commander-in-Chief.

After a disagreement with the French Socialists, Prime Minister Ribot was forced out and on 7 September 1917 and Painlevé became Prime Minister. He played a leading role in the Allied Conference at Rapallo in Italy, but was defeated after returning to Paris and he resigned as Prime Minister on 13 November 1917. (...)

28954 Private Caleb March of the 2/8th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, was killed in action on the 7th September 1917. He had previously served with the Worcestershire regiment (number 31102). Caleb was born in Evesham, was living in Bengeworth and enlisted at Pershore (all Worcestershire locations).

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission records his name as Caleb Valentine (Tony) March and notes that he was 18 years old, the son of Allen and A X March, of 303 Bridge Street, Evesham. He is buried in Oxford Road Cemetery in Ypres.

A farmer from Clinton, Vermillion County, Loran was born on 17 October 1895. Drafted on 3 April 1918, he received training at Camp Taylor (as part of 11 Coy, 3rd Bn, 159th Depot Brigade) before being sent overseas on 5 May 1918. Wounded in action near Fismes, he died of these wounds on 7 September 1918. Buried near Fismes, Loran's body was repatriated post-war.

In military parlance, D-Day is a term often used to denote the day on which a combat attack or operation is to be initiated. By far the most well-known D-Day is June 6, 1944—the day on which the Battle of Normandy began—commencing the American, British, and Canadian liberation efforts of mainland Europe from Nazi occupation during World War II. This article discusses the general use of the term D-Day. Refer to the Battle of Normandy article for a description of the events of June 1944.

The terms D-day and H-hour are used for the day and hour on which a combat attack or operation is to be initiated. They designate the day and hour of the operation when the day and hour have not yet been determined, or where secrecy is essential. The letters are derived from the words for which they stand, "D" for the day of the invasion and "H" for the hour operations actually begin. There is but one D-day and one H-hour for all units participating in a given operation.

When used in combination with figures, and plus or minus signs, these terms indicate the point of time preceding or following a specific action. Thus, H-3 means 3 hours before H-hour, and D+3 means 3 days after D-day. H+75 minutes means H-hour plus 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Planning papers for large-scale operations are made up in detail long before specific dates are set. Thus, orders are issued for the various steps to be carried out on the D-day or H-hour minus or plus a certain number of days, hours, or minutes. At the appropriate time, a subsequent order is issued that states the actual day and times.

The earliest use of these terms by the U.S. Army that the Center of Military History has been able to find was during World War I. In Field Order Number 9, First Army, American Expeditionary Forces, dated 7 September 1918: "The First Army will attack at H hour on D day with the object of forcing the evacuation of the St. Mihiel Salient."

7 September 1919: An unofficial government policy of reprisals began in Fermoy, County Cork. Two hundred British soldiers looted and burned several commercial buildings in the town, after 23 Cork Volunteers, under the leadership of Liam Lynch, augmented by Mick Mansfield and George Lennon of Waterford attacked members of the Royal Shropshire Light Infantry en route to services at the Wesleyan Church. Four soldiers were reportedly wounded, one fatally. Fifteen rifles were captured. Lynch was also wounded and taken to a Youghal safe house. Later he was transferred to West Waterford where he rested at Foley's in Ardmore and finally taken on to Cooney's farmhouse at Carriglea, Dungarvan. Here he recovered from his wound under the care of Dr B. Moloney from the nearby town before returning to Fermoy area.

The First Battle of the Marne - The Far Northwestern Front.
==Renewed intense fighting on the Ourcq as the reinforced right flank of Kluck’s 1st Army stops the offensive by French 6th Army [morning]: Colonel Robert Nivelle singlehandedly prevents a French route near Etrépilly - 6th Army’s northern flank temporarily collapses, but Gallieni restores it by transporting troops from Paris in 600 commandeered taxi cabs [afternoon] - Joffre takes over direct command of 6th Army from Gallieni

==Kluck receives Moltke’s warning of a general French counteroffensive [morning]; he transfers two more corps northwards against the French 6th Army on the Ourcq [morning], opening the gap between the German 1st and 2nd Armies still wider
==Joffre’s General Instructions #7 are sent [afternoon]: French 6th Army is to redirect its attack against German 1st Army’s northern flank, while the BEF and the left wing of the French 5th Army are to push north

The First Battle of the Marne - The BEF and Northwestern Fronts.
==Far behind the lines, the fortress complex at Maubeuge falls to the Germans [evening], with 30,000 French prisoners
==The BEF and most of the French 5th Army advance “absurdly slowly” against almost no resistance - old-fashioned cavalry actions at Monsel and Faujus - the BEF reaches the Petit Morin River
==Fierce fighting between the right flanks of the French 5th Army and the German 2nd Army at Soizy-au-Bois; Bülow withdraws behind the Petit Morin [afternoon]

The First Battle of the Marne - The Central Front.
==Foch’s 9th Army and Langle’s 4th Army are again subjected to powerful attacks, as German 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Armies attempt to break the Allied center - German attacks threaten St. Mihiel

The First Battle of the Marne - Lorraine.
==The hard-pressed Castelnau nearly abandons Nancy, until Joffre explicitly orders him to hold the city at all costs [afternoon]

The First Battle of the Marne - German Headquarters (OHL).
==Communications between OHL and the German army commanders fighting on the Western Front have almost ceased
==Writing to his wife on the destruction caused by the war, Moltke laments “Terror often overcomes me when I think about this, and the feeling I have is as if I must answer for this horror, and yet I could not act otherwise than as I have.”

From the British point of view the Battle of the Marne began on 7th September, the Expeditionary Force at dawn holding a line running approximately from Vaudoy-Touquin (Ist Corps)-Lumigny-Faremoutiers--Courtry (IInd Corps)-Villeneuve St. Denis- Villeneuve-le-Comte-Villiers (IIIrd Corps). Throughout the day action was chiefly confined to encounters between de Lisle's Cavalry Brigade and German Cavalry of the 2nd and 9th Guard Cavalry Division. Behind his cavalry the enemy retreated.

The 1st Middlesex marched at 8 a.m. to Romain Villiers, thence via Villiers-Dainville to Le Haute Maison. On arrival just south of the latter village rifle fire was heard immediately in front and on the right flank of the Battalion, the remainder of the column having come into action with a German rearguard.